


Recipe for Regrets

by RoleplayFanfics



Series: Recipe for Circumstances [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Remus Lupin, Adult Severus Snape, Adult Sirius Black, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Severus Snape, Bisexual Sirius Black, Epilogue, F/M, Flashbacks, Gay Remus Lupin, Gay Severus Snape, Good Severus Snape, Happy Ending, M/M, Matchmaker Sirius Black, Maybe Remus will finally get that hug, Memories, Only canon character deaths, Optimistic Ending, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Regulus gets some well deserved recognition, Retelling, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Sirius Black finally doing good, Sirius Black has regrets, Sirius Black is a hoe, Sirius Black regrets everything, Wingman Sirius Black, happy ending????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 10:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21251972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoleplayFanfics/pseuds/RoleplayFanfics
Summary: "Sirius Black was awfully good at staring; it was a skill he had developed over many years.Currently, he was staring at two idiots, who were desperately trying to pretend that they didn’t have any romantic interest in the other, namely Severus Snape and Remus Lupin."A story of Sirius Black reflecting back on his life and many regrets, as well as playing wingman for a stupid werewolf.





	Recipe for Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> Here comes the Epilogue for the whole Recipe for Circumstance story. Sirius deserved some spotlight and mention of circumstances, so here's the epilogue written from his point of view. Written by Teddy.
> 
> Story Order:  
Recipe for Sympathy  
Recipe for Resentment ( Severus POV )  
Recipe for Reconciliation  
Recipe for Regrets ( Epilogue/Sirius Black story )  
Recipe for Betrayal ( Future extra )

Sirius Black was awfully good at staring; it was a skill he had developed over many years. 

First, he had practiced it by scowling at his mother, as she yelled at him for all his faults. Secondly, he had stared at teachers, who tried to tell him what to do and not to do. Then, he had proceeded to stare longingly after James Potter, as the boy grew to a man, and as teenage hormones became harder and harder to deal with. Some other notable practice to develop his staring had been: staring at the walls out of boredom in class, staring to intimidate people, staring at Severus Snape when the guy was being annoying, and staring up in the roof at night, as he tried to find peace enough to fall asleep. Finally, he had also been staring into a wall for almost thirteen years, after being locked up in Azkaban. Needless to clarify: he was pretty darn good at staring, at this point. Currently, he was staring at two idiots, who were desperately trying to pretend that they didn’t have any romantic interest in the other, namely Severus Snape and Remus Lupin.

Sirius was sitting on a couch, in his family home, alone in the same room as the two lovers; he knew that they were lovers, because Remus really wasn’t very good at hiding his feelings.

Sirius hated his family home with all his heart, and he was more than upset that it had become the best hiding spot he could ever wish for, but not until Dumbledore reawoke the Order of the Phoenix did Sirius actually find himself glad over the house, seeing as it was the perfect place to host the Order. Sirius was displeased to learn that Snape was supposedly coming with everyone, leaving him no choice but to have the guy come stay as well. In reality, he no longer hated Snape for the child he had been, and he wasn’t even that upset about the Potions Professor giving him over to the Dementors to die. No, what he absolutely disliked the most about having Snape there, was that he couldn’t look at the man without feeling regret pierce his heart, stabbing, chilling, painful regret. 

If a person was left in the dark with his own thoughts for an extended period of time, his mind would figure its way to their darkest, most uncomfortable memories, keeping the person awake and writtling in misery over the recollection of those regret-filled memories. Sirius Black had been thrown in a dark cell, surrounded by creatures who fed on the very concept of happy memories and thoughts, effectively making certain that their victims become paralyzed with the negative emotions that remain. Such a living condition left a man with a lot of time to think about all the regrets he had in life, and Sirius Black had a lot of them. 

“I think,” Remus said, “that the recipe could really benefit from even more chocolate, or maybe even use cacao for replacement, even if chocolate would be the better alternative.” The werewolf was talking to the potion master, but Sirius hadn’t paid attention to their actual topic, instead observing how the two were giving each other longing looks when they thought nobody was looking. Snape was actually rather good at it, Remus sucked beyond words, boy could that man not keep his emotions hidden… It had been funny at first, but now it was getting tragic. 

“I think the recipe has more than enough chocolate…” Snape responded, in a dry tone which made him seem like he had breathed old books for so long that their dust had gathered on his tongue, making him unable to utter words which didn’t sound dry as the pages of those old books. How could a man mention chocolate, and make it sound like the least tasty thing in the world. 

Sirius rolled his eyes and moved to stare into the wall of the living room which had once held the family tree, before his mother had started to remove some of them for dishonoring the family. The former prisoner chewed on his lower lip as he stared at the black smudge which had once been his name. Simply looking at the name brought back memories of his time at Hogwarts, the location from where most his regrets came from. 

\-----

Most of his regrets in life were centered around James Potter. Sirius had been so very in love with the boy, and later, the man, that he felt nauseous thinking of all the emotions he had experienced back then. He really never had any interest in the Quidditch team, but he wanted to do it with James. Sirius had liked playing with him, and he had liked to be around him on the playing field. There was no other time where James’ eyes just seemed to burn with such intensity and determination, simply the memory of the boy’s passion used to make his legs weak, these days, the memory had been eaten from him so much that he had a hard time recalling it. 

James had been an amazing person… He had been a strong leader, a determined person, and overall so full of life and mischief that he had brought all the marauders together as their strong, steady center. He had been a source of safety, a source of comfort, and the biggest factor in Sirius once and for all deciding that he hated the pureblood elitist mentality, that his family was trying to push onto him. Falling in love with him had seemed so very natural, but to Sirius’s horror, he quickly discovered that James only had eyes for a single person, and no matter how funny, handsome, or outstanding Sirius was, James would continuously desire Lily Evans.

How he had loathed Lily when he was younger, that cute, perfect girl who made such an excellent witch despite having no previous experience with magic. She had a lot of friends to be around, and she had some manner of moral superiority to everyone else; nothing stopped her from walking up to anyone and speaking her mind, especially if that someone was being mean or rude to somebody else. Sirius had been annoyed with the way she thought she was better than all of them, and how she specifically targeted the marauders, and James, with her attitude. Yet what had hurt the most with the continuously happening scenario, was that his best friend had enjoyed the attitude she was giving him. She was literary yelling at him for being a ‘meanie’ and he was just taking it. Standing there with that silly and lovestruck grin on his face, letting her hand it to him without being bothered by her behavior in the least. Sometimes, it even seemed as if James caused mischief around the girl so that she would come over and bark at them. Sirius hated to have the stuck up little redhead come tell them off for every single fun thing they did. It was the same as accepting attitude from a person of authority, and the wizard wanted none of that. 

It wasn’t until much later, when he had grown older, and James and Lily were dating for real, that he had realized that Lily had been braver than any of them for actually speaking up when she saw something wrong. Later yet, as his happy memories were continuously stolen from him, he painfully came to realize that she must have been terrified speaking up against the marauders, and how much it must have bothered her to have the person she was constantly trying to reprimand continuing his behavior to get her attention. It wasn’t Lily’s fault that James hadn’t fallen in love with Sirius, like he had with him. Sirius had no right to demand the love of his friend, and it truly seemed like James and Lily made one another happy. The dog-like man had been very happy for them when they married, he had long since realized that he wouldn’t ever be anything but James’s brother, and he had learned to be satisfied with that. 

A lot of Sirius’s regrets had to do with the way he had treated people, and despite him not being the most pleasant to Lily Evans, he had never been cruel to her, not like he had been to Severus Snape. As much as he wanted to say that he had loathed Snape from the first time he saw him, he really hadn’t even noticed the boy until Peter had mentioned that Lily was apparently friends with a Slytherin boy. James had immediately pushed to find out who the boy was, and he was the one to first start bullying Snape for his proximity to the girl James liked. Snape was just very easy to pick on, he had everything against him: hand me down clothes, hair which seemed to look greasy no matter what he did to it, and no friends who would try and protect him. All Snape had to do was bend his head and not make a deal out of it, all he had needed to do was to act timid, and both James and Sirius would have lost interest in him; the problem was that Snape didn’t give in to them. No matter what they did, he talked back, or cast a spell back, he was never once allowing himself to become the victim, he was always, always able to retort to them. The boy’s behavior happened to fit Sirius’s desires perfectly well because it certainly gave him a reason to continue with the bullying, and it fueled James equally. Their treatment of her old friend lead to even more resentment from Lily, which of course made her dislike James’s advances even more, which was just what Sirius had wanted. Snivellus Snape became the perfect key to keep James and Lily from one another, making sure that the girl wouldn’t want anything to do with them. 

One of the things that made it so very easy to use Snape as a scapegoat for his resentment towards Lily Evans was the fact that people had an almost uncanny willingness to believe in all types of bad rumors about the Slytherin. Sirius had spread a few, and to his great excitement, and now to his great shame, people had believed him, and they had in turn come up with other rumors to add to the pile. Sirius had not hesitated to believe in the rumors, and he handed them on to other people without caring whatsoever if they were the least true or not. One of the most effective ones was to state that Snape was creeping around Lily because he was in love with her, that made all the girls shudder, and made James all the more annoyed with the greasy boy. Sirius hadn’t created all the rumors, but he was definitely guilty of spreading those he heard around. 

During later years, the Slytherin even became a threat, where he was close to figuring out their secrets, or rather, Remus’s secret. Snape hadn’t really been actively trying to get them thrown out of school, but Sirius had been convinced that the greasy kid was following them to try and find a reason to get at least him and James kicked out of school. It had reached a point where Sirius had thought he could scare the brat to obedience once and for all, by actually allowing him to know the truth about the werewolf. It had not hit him until much later, once again, in Azkaban, that he had been using Remus as some manner of brainless attack dog, and that Snape could have gotten killed, effectively making the werewolf a killer… That realization and regret had hit him so hard that he had been unable to eat for days afterwards, only managing to begin eating again by sheer force of willpower. 

When James was alive, him and Sirius had often been excusing themselves with the phrase “we were just children, we didn’t know any better.” For years, Sirius had used that phrase to push away all his regrets and to not think about them. In Azkaban, the phrase offered no comfort, and Sirius saw it for what it was; it was an excuse to not have to think about the consequences for their actions. They had hurt Snape, very badly, and Sirius himself had absolutely hurt Remus, as well. Not only had he used him as an attack dog, almost making the sick boy a killer, he had also treated him as somebody he wouldn’t want too close to. He could blame in on both their dog-like natures, but Azkaban had forcefully reminded him that he had been scared of getting infected with the werewolf’s sickness. Despite all his grand ideas back when he was a child, the werewolf had still been disgusting to him, still been something to keep away while he pretended not to mind. Remus was most likely aware of that, despite acting like he wasn’t. 

Snape had gotten back at him once, by pointing out that he knew that Sirius had feelings for James. It had come at a particularly bad time, when James hadn’t been with them, and Sirius had unhealthily enough picked a fight with Snape to try and cope with his own raging emotions. Snape had turned his bullying around so completely, that Sirius might have actually physically hurt him with his fists, had he not been stopped by Remus stepping between them. Darn it, he really had not been treating Remus fairly after that… Yet, the event itself was the catalyst for him suspecting that the two of them had had something going on between them. It felt pretty damn satisfying to learn that he had indeed been right all those years ago, about the two of them liking one another. The smug triumph was quickly replaced by annoyance over how the two acted like they weren’t at all attracted to one another. They weren’t even fooling themselves, for Merlin’s sake! It was getting pretty darn embarrassing to watch them.

As he thought about the things he regretted in regards to his friends, his thoughts wandered to the last of the Marauders… Peter Pettigrew. Oh how he loathed Peter! The fire which had kept him alive all these years had been his wish to find and kill that rat, to reach out and strangle him, muggle style. To make sure Peter would suffer until the very second his heart stopped beating, to make the traitorous little snot pile writtle with fear and in wretchedness as he died. Still, the hopelessness of Azkaban had affected Sirius, infected him, forcing him to relive the memories of the way he had treated the rat-like boy back in school. 

Peter did not fit in, he had never really fit in anywhere. When he was sorted into Gryffindor, and had made his way to the table, he could hear the older students whisper, betting on what kid would end up where, and Sirius had heard them bet on the fat kid being placed into Hufflepuff. Since he had grown up in a very elitist family, Sirius figured that Peter would end up in that mostly useless house, and he had been as surprised as the older students by the boy ending up in Gryffindor. Him, James, Peter and Remus had ended up together in the beginning of the year, and had ended up remaining together for most of it, and the years that followed. While Sirius did get along with James and the (then unknowingly to him) werewolf, he had never actually had anything to speak with Peter about. Things quickly became awkward, especially since it became clear rather quickly that Peter wasn’t talented or clever, and despite them never needed him in their group he still stuck around. So Sirius did what he could, and began to tease Peter to hide his own annoyance. When the heavy kid had made mistakes, instead of getting mad at him, Sirius turned to play-bullying. After that, it became so easy to tease and joke around with Peter when he himself wasn’t feeling good. When James was too busy with his stupid Quidditch, when a teacher had objected to the ways he was behaving, when his mother tried to write to him about what a disappointment he was to the entirety of the Black name, Peter became the tool which he took the feelings out on. 

It had gotten even worse for Peter when Sirius had realized that, like most other people in school with low standards for love and high standards for sex, the boy had become attracted to him. It was so disgustingly easy to tease him by making him flustrated, by acting as if Peter had a chance with the sought after Sirius Black, by sometimes moving just close enough to seem like their skin would actually touch… He had enjoyed the teenager’s desire for him immensely. 

Sirius had not been especially hard to get into bed, but he knew that the people who had sex with him weren’t likely to remain around him, thus he had promised himself that he would never have sex with either Remus or Peter. He would happily have had sex with James if he had asked, but it wasn’t worth the heartbreak he would bring to the werewolf and the rat when Sirius lost interest in them. Not to mention that Sirius was too disgusted and scared by the werewolf to want to have sex with him, and Peter was just unattractive to him. It would take a miracle for him to ever consider Peter worth his time in bed.

That was another one of his biggest regrets, one that hadn’t haunted him as much as his other regrets, but the shame and disgust of having trusted Peter Pettigrew, at all, was stained even darker with the fact that he actually had had sex with the rat-like teenager. It had happened after the most disastrous Yule Ball, where his date, James Morgan, had emptied a drink over his head and stormed off, making a big deal out of something… he honestly had every right to be mad about. Sirius post-Azkaban-self had definitely thought of sending the man an apologize owl for the way he had treated him back then, but he knew better than to do a thing that would compromise his and the Phoenix Order’s positions. James Morgan had left, and Sirius had stomped off on his own, heading straight for the room of requirements, where he often headed when he needed to cool down his head and not be ambushed in the sleeping halls. He had taken a shower, and thrown himself onto the bed, all of which had been provided to him by the room itself. 

As he had laid there, naked, face down in the pillows, the room had opened itself to a new visitor, and Peter had joined him. As Sirius had set Peter up with a date for the night, one that to his knowledge had seemed to go pretty well, he was more than a little surprised to see the somewhat-bigger-but-no-longer-fat teenager come over to him, instead of enjoying the full evening with the girl. The rat-like teenager had been very embarrassed to look at his naked body, and instead made sure to try and consol him without seeming like he was turned on by him. One thing had lead to another, and Sirius had pushed their lips together, unhealthily using sex to try and forget that James was still out there, having fun with Lily Evans, having completely forgotten about his best friend. Sirius wanted nothing but to be taken and have all his regrets pounded out of his head, he didn’t care if it hurt, and he didn’t want to go through the effort of pleasing somebody else, thus he had encouraged Peter to be the one to lead, the one to top so to say. He had expected to get some enjoyment out of the teenager’s fear, worry and clumsy behavior, but to his great surprise, Peter turned out to be more than capable, and he was even big enough for Sirius to find the size pleasant without being too big. Sirius had urged the other to not stop after the first round, and when Peter finally admitted to actually hurting from too much sex, the dog-like teenager had been sufficiently pounded to the point where he was aching as well. 

He could still recall what they had said to one another as they had laid in the darkened room, Peter having left his date and his pleasant evening to take care of Sirius, all the dog-like teenager had been able to say was that Peter shouldn’t expect anything like this to ever happen again, despite how the other had gone out of his way to comfort him.

“It’s just not going to happen, don’t get your hopes up.” 

Peter had chuckled, in a way that almost didn’t seem nervous. “Don’t worry, Sirius, I know you don’t generally have sex with the same people twice.” 

“It… has happened.” Sirius had responded, after thinking about it for a short while. 

“Either way, I won’t ask it again, I’m really happy I was able to make you feel better.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Sirius had waved the other’s words away as to not have to think about them, not wanting to think of Peter Pettigrew comforting him, kissing him, being inside of him, _ being filled by Peter of all people… _

“Good night, Sirius, you can pretend this never happened tomorrow.” Peter had curled up to him, hugging him from behind with his soft, warm body which worked wonders against Sirius’ back pain, which had come from the forceful anal sex. 

And so, Sirius had pretended that it never happened, he had pretended so hard that he had forgotten about it completely. Azkaban had brought said memory back, making him feel ill with himself. He had trusted Peter, some damned part of him had believed in the weak, useless, talentless rat-man, and James and Lily had paid the price for his trust. Why, why, why had he trusted Peter? Remus had been the evident option, yes, it might have been expected, but it would have been safer than trusting something to weak-willed as Peter. Not ‘somebody,’ something was the right word, traitors lost the right of being people, especially if they held no regrets for their actions. 

As he thought about that night with Peter, he came around to another of his big regret of life, which was his unhealthy coping mechanisms. Sirius had struggled for a long time with the idea of belonging to a family which expected things of him that he did not want to be. Many children struggled with such things, but at least their parents were not trying to make them into Death Eaters, to mold them into becoming purists who wished only the pure magic race to prosper. Sirius’s time in his home had been an endless battle for his own identity, and even at Hogwarts, he had been forced to endure his mother trying to convince him of his superiority, while also trying to break him for the alledgled betrayal against his name and blood. It wasn’t until he had been invited to live with the Potters that he had finally found a place where he could breathe and relax. In the meantime, he had dealt with his issues in a number of unhealthy ways. 

The first one of those was his treatment of other people, the second one was to have sex with anyone who wanted to share a bed with him. Sex it itself really wasn’t a bad thing, Sirius very much liked sex, as many people did. Sex in itself wasn’t even the problem, having had sex with so many people might not have been ideal, but it wasn’t a crime or something he’d condemn someone else for. He just hadn’t been all that nice to the people he had ‘burned through,’ but still, the actual problem was the way he had used others. Consensual sex was never a question to Sirius, if he could not have the person’s consent, sex with that person would not happen, thus he was never one of those disgusting people who considered entitled sex with somebody without their approval. No, rather, it was all the lies which he had pulled to actually get the people he wanted to want to sleep with him as well. Empty compliments, sometimes silly and cheap gifts, faked attention, and faked attraction towards them, those were a few of the sins on his list of tactics he had used to get people interested enough in him to go to bed with him. 

He had almost never thought of the person he was having sex with during the act, he had treated them as tools, and when his lovers realized that Sirius hadn’t been what he had seemed to be before they became lovers, he had more often than not been removed out of their lives. It had fit Sirius perfectly well, as he had just moved on to someone else, and before he knew it, he had the reputation of being the school’s whore. Luckily enough for him, he was talented enough, in both schoolwork and sports, to not have that hinder him in any way. Sure, some people would try to use it against him, but they could try to bully the popular, sporty, handsome and decently rich guy all they wanted, their efforts would never really reach Sirius. 

Sirius was usually approached by older people in his later years at Hogwarts, people who didn’t want a real relationship with him, but were equally fine with using one another for basic pleasure. That might have seemed unethical, but he was old enough to consent, and desperate enough to find distraction in their attraction towards him. That was probably not a sin as much as it hadn’t been healthy for his self-image. In all honesty, he did not recall the people he had been with all that well, they were a blur of heat, kisses, and soft skin and hair. 

He had never cared about things like gender. In the beginning, it had been just a little nervous to be with guys, but he quickly found that men gave him a feeling of empowerment in the sense that his mother would most likely have been annoyed over him wasting his oh so great and important pureblood sperm on a vessel that couldn’t carry a child. Only purebloods were concerned about the gender of their partner, all other wizards and witches couldn’t care less about such manners, that made his attractions towards all genders a sort of rebellious act against his family, and that was always a bonus in his eyes. 

The teachers didn’t care enough either, and nobody but Regulus could tell their parents about his behavior. Luckily enough for his little brother, Regulus knew how to shut his mouth, least face the wrath of his prone-to-violence older brother, so their parents never knew. 

Regulus was… difficult to think about, mostly because Sirius didn’t quite know how to think about the boy, teenager, man… He didn’t quite know what face to recall his brother by, and he still wasn’t sure if he had ever really thought of the guy as his brother. He was more a person whom had happened to live under the same roof for fifteen years of Sirius’ life, he had just always been there. 

It wasn’t too great a shock for Sirius to learn that his father had passed away during his last years in school, and he wasn’t invited to the funeral so he didn’t really think of it too much. His father was much older than his mother, and he had never been very prominent in life, leaving his son indifferent to his passing. A few years after he had finished school, he had received a letter from Regulus, telling him of their mother’s death. Regulus’s letter didn’t blame him, it didn’t even ask him to come, but it wished that Sirius would write back to him to speak about the inheritance. According to the letter, their mother had made sure that Sirius wasn’t mentioned in her will, but his brother had apparently wanted to discuss that further with him. Still, Sirius never responded, and he never got to know what Regulus had wanted to talk to him about, if it had only been about the money, or if he had wanted to speak to him about other things too. 

Sirius had been beyond shocked to learn that Regulus was dead. He had returned to his family home, hoping to be able to at least talk to him, but he had found the house empty, not counting the house elf Kreacher, who refused to speak with him, and after fishing around, he had learned the truth with the help of Dumbledore, whom had probably learnt about his situation from Remus, and had thus contacted him. Sirius hadn’t responded for a long time, and only after getting confirmation from the werewolf had he dared answering the old wizard’s letters. The topic of Regulus had risen, and Sirius had learnt of his brother’s death, and that he was the sole heir to all of the Black family’s money, courtesy of his brother’s will. 

Sirius had wanted to cry for him, but he had a very hard time to figure out how to. Thirteen years of complete and utter misery and depression did that to a man. It wasn’t until he had wandered about and finally entered his mother’s old bedroom that he had found a letter addressed to him. He had found it insanely odd to find it there, but the letter had explained that Kreacher was always taking care of the room, never daring to touch anything but the things he cleaned. Therefore, he would not try and damage the letter in any way, or let someone take it from the bedroom in question, thus assuring that it was kept safe until Sirius found it. He had hesitated to open it for a while, until he steeled his heart, and pulled the envelope open. He hadn’t recognized his brother’s handwriting until he saw the scrawny signature by the end of the letter. 

_ Dear Sirius, _

_ I leave this letter for you here, in our mother’s bedroom, as it is the safest place in the house. Kreacher will take care of and clean the room, while making sure nothing in here is lost or taken by anyone outside of the family. While he might not be the most reliable in other aspects, he can at the very least be relied upon to care for mother’s possessions. _

_ When you read this, I will already be dead. Were you freed from Azkaban, or did you escape? Escape is supposedly impossible, but you were always impossible, so it would not surprise me if you became the only one to ever escape its hold. _

_ There are a great many things I wanted to speak to you about, a lot of them are not what you would have expected me to want to talk about, but I only have a letter, and a lifetime of regrets cannot be fitted onto one piece of parchment. You should be glad to know that you were right. The Dark Lord is no savior, and his ideals are foolish, small minded, and doomed to be stopped least destroy the Wizarding World’s future. I should have seen it sooner. I should have rejected mother’s ideas, just like you did. I wished I had talked to you more, I wish I hadn’t been so blind, but it’s all too late now; I have things I must do. _

_ I have discovered something, something dangerous, which I shouldn’t know. The Dark Lord has split his soul into a number or Horcruxes, effectively making him immortal. He can never die unless those pieces are destroyed first. I don’t know how many there are, and I don’t know where they are, least one of them. I will go to destroy it, I will crush that thing, kill him a little bit with my own hands. It will kill me, of that I am certain. Sirius, read this and rejoice over the idea of mother’s disapproval for what I am about to do, in following my brother’s footsteps and being a shame to the Black name. _

_ I wish I could say that I love you, but I don’t actually know you. I admire you a lot, for all the things you managed to do and be, without being held back by the influence of our mother’s. I suppose I wanted to be more like you, or wish I had… I’m trailing off, and I’m running out of space. _

_ Sirius, if you read this, know that you were the best Black, in terms of not being fooled by empty promises of superiority. Tell Dumbledore about the horcruxes, don’t make my discovery in vain. I can’t tell him personally, my owls are being captured and and my mail read, this is the only way. _

_ Sincerely, _

_ Regulus Black _

The letter from his brother was what caused his emotions to tip over, reducing him to a sobbing mess on the floor. It was very true that his brother was little less than a stranger, but the letter had made it clear that they could have been brothers, if only life had been less cruel. He wasn’t sure how long he cried, but when he finished, he did his best to contact Dumbledore and tell him of his brother’s discovery. He didn’t receive a direct answer to what a horcrux was supposed to be, but the old wizard made sure that he knew that Regulus discovery had been very valuable. 

\-----

So his brother, absolute sheep as the man was, had followed the Dark Lord, and become a Death Eater. Still, to his great reluctance, he had to admit that his brother had clearly not been all bad. Despite him being a Death Eater, he had rejected the Dark Lord’s teachings, and turned his back to those ideas in favor for the ones where the Wizarding world as a whole didn’t go to shit. If he was able to accept that his brother had been a Death Eater with a consciousness, then maybe he had to face the fact that Snape was, too. Dumbledore clearly believed that he was, and so did Remus, the lovestruck thing that he was.

Sirius didn’t really think that it was his fault that the two teenagers had broken up back then, when Snape had started yelling about Mudbloods to Lily’s face, he could admit to maybe being part of the reason as to why Snape was pushed to the breaking point, but he didn’t believe himself to be the sole reason for their discord. He was already placing the blame for a lot of things on himself, thus he wasn’t ready to accept his part in their fighting as solely his own fault. He did admit to being part of the problem, but if those idiots didn’t talk it out afterwards on their own, he was hardly responsible for it.

Sirius pulled his eyes away from the family tree, and refocused on the two men on the other end of the room, who were still speaking about… something, Sirius had obviously not been following their conversation. It wasn’t his fault that they had never made up, but he had very few regrets which he could amend, leaving this one the only thing within reach that he could actually do something about. 

The former prisoner got up and strode over to the other two men, who were standing in the way of the door. He stopped by them, loudly announcing his presence with a cough. It was the most annoying of feelings to have the two other men be two and one head taller than Sirius, respectively. The dog-like man crossed his arms, staring up at the two other, he looked from both of them and then shook his head. “Why haven’t you two admitted to being in love yet?” Sirius had no filter whatsoever after his time in prison, and the look on both their faces made it especially worth it, this time.

“I beg you pardon?” Snape caught his tongue first, speaking fast and sharply. 

“You are in love with one another, Snape. L-O-V-E. You both know it, and you are both trying to act like the other isn’t.” Sirius stared at Snape with the same intensity that he had back when he had actually been a threat to the Slytherin teenager. 

“Sirius, that isn’t exactly…” Remus tried to object, but Sirius snapped around at him, making the werewolf shut up and look away, his face redder than the dog-like man had ever seen it. 

“What? Give me a reason as to why you can’t admit to liking each other a lot. You fuck all the time, you’re filling the whole room up with lovely dovely scents of affection. Give me a reason as to why you can’t just admit to being in love and go be happy!” He wasn’t screaming, but he had accidentally raised his voice out of frustration. 

Remus and Snape looked at one another, both of them seemed like they had something they wanted to say. Remus was biting his lower lip, looking almost pleading, while Snape had some manner of tragic look of regret in his eyes. 

“...Life… isn’t so easy, Black.” Snape tried to respond, while avoiding Remus’ eyes. “We are living in a war, we don’t have time for commitment.” 

“HAH!” Sirius didn't mean to scream, but he still accidentally did. “So that’s the problem? You absolute idiots, do you think not admitting that you’re in love with one another will make the war easier? Bloody fools, don’t you know it’s better to actually admit to these things? Don’t you want to love and have loved rather than to die alone knowing what you could have had? It’s because there is a war that you have to stop acting like teenager and admit your feelings as grown ass men.” Sirius could almost hear himself sounding like his mother, but he was far too passionate about forcing some understanding into the lovers’ eyes to focus on the way he sounded.

Snape avoided his eyes, squirming uncomfortably under Sirius’ gaze, something very uncharacteristic for the grown man, something the man hadn’t done since teenage years, and barely even then. 

“No, he is right…” Remus suddenly spoke up, surprising both men, who turned to him. Sirius had never seen Remus as determined and scared. He looked like he was gathering enough courage from twenty years, forcefully summoning all the bravery in his body. “Severus, I love you. I don’t know for how long, but I know it’s not a phase or confusion. I really do love you, and I want to be with you for every second I can, despite how this war will end for either of us. I love you, and I should have told you years ago.” Remus looked like the world had been lift from his shoulders, but he was shaking from the impact of his words. 

Sirius grinned and headed for the door, sparing Snape the embarrassment of witnessing his reaction. Still, before he was out the door, he could hear the two men embrace behind him. Sirius shut the door, still with a smile on his face, he didn’t mean to listen in, but he heard the sound of Snape’s crying into Remus’ chest, finally, finally admitting that:

“I love you too.”


End file.
